Why it works: Flour and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Dora's Steamed Brown Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the Indian meal, Kye meal, flour, molasses, baking soda, and salt with warm water.
Steam the mixture for 3 to 4 hours.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Indian meal
- Forms the bulk of the bread and gives it its coarse, hearty structure.
- Kye meal
- Adds body and a coarse, grainy texture to the bread.
- Flour
- Helps bind the batter so the loaf holds together after steaming.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, moisture and the dark brown colour of the bread.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the molasses acid to lighten the batter and help it rise.
The step that matters
Steam for the full 3 to 4 hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the dense batter through. Stopping early leaves the centre gummy and underset, because the starches and leavening need sustained moist heat to set.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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